Thoughts, Ramblings, Short Stories, and Novels

Christmas Past

For most of us, it is the memories of Christmas past that drive the spirit of the season. The innocence of belief in the magic of a Jolly Old Man and his generosity tempered by expectations of good behavior brings a smile to one’s face.

My sister, as she is wont to do, recently posted a picture of one of those Christmas moments. It is not a digital image, not a tweet, not an old Facebook post, but a picture taken with a camera that required one to wait for the result.

A simpler time.

Emblazoned on the image is the “text” of that era; the date the picture was taken, ‘Dec 61.’

I was five years old and my sister was three. We were quite fashionably dressed for the time as you all can see.

A moment in time of an age of innocence. I don’t know if I have ever seen the photograph before now. The moment and the picture are lost in fading memories. My parents would have had the film developed and placed it among their other pictures. Perhaps they showed it to me, perhaps they didn’t. Pictures weren’t so important to me at the time.

I wonder if my eyes were closed to preserve the moment in my mind? I wonder if somehow, I knew the next time those same eyes saw this moment, it would be from a time then long in the future?

Or I wonder if I closed my eyes, so I could enjoy those fleeting moments of that simpler time, somehow suspecting that once my eyes opened time would draw me inexorably to a loss of that innocence.

May your Christmas be Merry and Memorable and may you always keep a part of that innocence alive in your heart.

3 thoughts on “Christmas Past”

Today Rita and I trimmed our tree which is a tomato cage disguised with garland – It was my mother’s hand-me-down which we cherish. We put Gram’s tree on top of my Gampa-Go box – that’s a hand-crafted wooden tool box my grandfather made for me when I was three and we used it as a stage for home Christmas concerts like when I was only able to recite “Gampa-Go” for my part. Today, my kids would be devastated if Gram’s tree wasn’t on top of the Gampa-Go box. Thank Christmas for simpler times and I wish you, my good friend Joe and your entire family, a very Merry Christmas.